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Moonpod games on consoles survey
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Poll Result
  Would you like to see moonpod games on consoles?  
 
I'd love to see Moonpod games on consoles!
95%
 95%  [ 61 ]
I don't think they would be good on consoles.
4%
 4%  [ 3 ]
 
  Total Votes : 64  

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Rup



Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 363
Location: London, UK



PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fost wrote:
I think the Blitz team may have already talked about that. They'd have to become registered developers and get a dev kit of course, although they OGRE team appear to be getting along with that, so it is possible. the main problem is, they would only be able to sell to registered Xbox 360 developers - a pretty microscopic market I'd have thought. Obviously, there's a load of blitz users who would love some way to shoe horn their stuff onto a 360 somehow, but understandable, no console manufacturer is going to allow that as they make their money from the games sold on that plaform.

Sure, but there was a market for dev tools on the PS2 I think, e.g. Codeplay, the company that moved into our old office when we left, sell C compilers that target the PS2's vector units. I've heard Hexus is written in Flash, and read on someone's blog that MS are experimenting with the .NET framework for programming 360 games, so there might still be space for the Blitz guys to market their stuff as a propgramming framework: you're not targeting existing 360 developers, you're encouraging new ones to sign up so they can write Live Arcade games in Blitz.

I don't have a feel for how large your games are but porting the War Angels code to C++ would probably be easier than a rewrite, maybe in the order of weeks of work, not *totally* out of the question.

(BTW, I had a go at Geometry Wars again last night and I'm nearly double the highscore position I used to be with a much better score - so I'd guess twice as many people have bought that now?)
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Hamish
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Joined: 15 Mar 2005
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Programming-wise War Angels is about 18,000 lines of code right now. How would "porting the code to C++" be different to a rewrite?
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Rup



Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 363
Location: London, UK



PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hamish wrote:
Programming-wise War Angels is about 18,000 lines of code right now. How would "porting the code to C++" be different to a rewrite?

I guess I'm not sure what everyone means by rewrite: I meant you don't need to throw it all away and start from scratch, you can work through your existing code one function at a time and move it across. For the most part you'll just need to edit the syntax, you can leave most of the logic and flow alone. You'll then end up with something more C than C++ but that's no big deal.

The big problem could be that the Blitz support libraries use completely different interfaces and paradigms to DirectX, and then you would have to rethink how you go about things. But DirectX is pretty flexible, and you've got a lot of experience at Moonpod to talk to.
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Fost
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Joined: 14 Oct 2002
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rup wrote:
you're not targeting existing 360 developers, you're encouraging new ones to sign up so they can write Live Arcade games in Blitz.

Yes, but it's catch 22 - you wouldn't be allowed to have the blitz 360 code, unless you were a registered developer - that's how console middleware works. So you wouldn't be doing much to attract developers to live arcade, as it wouldn't be so simple as downloading the blitz port and plugging it into your home console. I am not saying there aren't many blitz3d developers, I'm saying there aren't many (even possibly any) that are also registered Xbox360 developers with devkits.

Currently, the market for a 360 blitz3d port is tiny, maybe even as small as one person: Hamish! Name some commercial blitz3d games that you'd want on 360 arcade? I can only think of one offhand - Anthony Flack's wondeful claymation shmup - Platypus.
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icarus
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Joined: 01 Mar 2004

Location: Olympia Washington



PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

well its just as good i don't think war angles would be any good without a mouse
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Hamish
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Joined: 15 Mar 2005
Posts: 570
Location: Auckland, NZ



PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think it would work alright if you used an analog stick to aim and another analog stick/d-pad to move. They put FPS games on consoles after all, and they seem much more difficult to control mouselessly.
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Rup



Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 363
Location: London, UK



PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fost wrote:
Yes, but it's catch 22 - you wouldn't be allowed to have the blitz 360 code, unless you were a registered developer - that's how console middleware works. So you wouldn't be doing much to attract developers to live arcade, as it wouldn't be so simple as downloading the blitz port and plugging it into your home console.

Sure, I meant if they've got a workable process to turn Blitz-on-PC into Blitz-on-360 then developers interested in 360 but who don't grok C++/DirectX could start off with Blitz-on-PC and handle the commercials to move across when they've got a good prototype.

So when you're talking about consoles here do you mean the current gen, the next gen (360, PS3, Revolution) or handhelds too? Are you thinking of boxed, disk releases, or Live arcade and the like? Could Mr Robot squeeze into 64 MB for Live arcade?
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Fost
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Joined: 14 Oct 2002
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dual stick controls are perfect for that kind of gameplay. Mutant Storm is one of my favourite games ever, but I think it never quite worked well with mouse control (although that could be because the mouse is a little laggy in the way they've implemented it), but on dual analogue pads it shines. Anyone with a dual pad should consider getting it in fact.

The technical requirements for putting War Angels on Live Arcade would probably mean you'd be talking a timescale where you might as well make another game. I think you really need to be looking at something that's as easy to move over initially, so you have some time to work on 360 specific features rather than just doing a straight port.
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Magnulus



Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 556
Location: Bergen, Norway



PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This thread has officially flown right across the top of my head by now with all this tech talk, but I just want to voice my absolute agreement with Fost. Platypus rocks!

Oh, and I don't know how much game-time you have with War Angels, Icarus, but I somehow doubt it's much more than what I've had, which is none whatsoever. I'll leave it up to Hamish to decide what works and doesn't. I have to admit, though, that I do feel mildly gratified that my theory about double analog sticks turned out to be "correct". Smile
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Fost
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Joined: 14 Oct 2002
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 1:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rup wrote:
So when you're talking about consoles here do you mean the current gen, the next gen (360, PS3, Revolution) or handhelds too? Are you thinking of boxed, disk releases, or Live arcade and the like?


I think we are most likely talking download services on consoles, which means Xbox 360 live arcade, Revolution and PSIII (when the latter two are released). Handlhelds are also an option, and we are already Nintendo DS certified. We are already doing research though - firstly, into some additional manpower so we can get any project off the ground quickly and also spend some time getting the best out of that platform, and secondly, we are in the process of submitting some pitches to console manufaturers. Of course, it's no so easy as saying 'Hi, I want to make this game' - all console manufacturers have an idea of what they want on their consoles, and we have to prove to them that Starscape/Mr. Robot are something they really should be looking for. That's why this thread should prove interesting reading for them - I think, whilst they are easy to get into and get hooked on, it's difficult to trulyappreciate either game without playing it extensively, and I'm sure all the major console manufacturers don't have time to play every suggestion they are sent. If they can read this thread, and see there's already an audince who'd like Starscape/Mr. Robot on a console, it will be another step towards that becoming reality.

Of course, this thread is really to hear everyone's thoughts, so other development platforms are interesting to hear about if anyone has an interest.

Rup wrote:
Could Mr Robot squeeze into 64 MB for Live arcade?

I think Mr. Robot would be far easier from a compression standpoint than Starscape, as Mr. Robot is 3D, whereas Starscape uses LOTs of rotation framess for each sprite. Both game's have heavily compressed installers though, and I think now we have the j2k image decompression on the fly (which should be very very quick on the 360) we should have no trouble getting it working. Nice too because we'd be pushing the limits of what you can get on a memory card Smile
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Magnulus



Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 556
Location: Bergen, Norway



PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is, of course, the whole notion that the GPX32 could see both Starscape and Mr. Robot... Maybe even WarAngels, if Blitz can port to Linux.

For starscape, I suppose you'd reduce the size of the installation quite a lot, since the game would run in 320x240. Of course, that means work would have to be put in to downsize all the sprites, so you might be just as well off by just downsampling it or something. Unless you automated the resizing.
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Fost
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Joined: 14 Oct 2002
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Magnulus wrote:
There is, of course, the whole notion that the GPX32 could see both Starscape and Mr. Robot... Maybe even WarAngels, if Blitz can port to Linux.

We were really interested in the GP32 at one point - in fact Starscape had a high chance of being a European launch title. Or course, European launch was scrubbed in the end.
At the moment though, I don't think there's much of a GPX32 games market- rather it seems like the ultimate emulation portable, and that's what people are buying it for. In fact, I can't find one post on any website which discusses a game written specifically for GPX32 which people are consideirng buying.

Not that that's necessarily reason not to try, but I think it's reason enough for it to go pretty low down on the list.

There's a rumour going round that J Allard's next project for MS is a handheld console, unrelated to the Origami project (although that looks like a nice platform to get on too)
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Magnulus



Joined: 08 Nov 2005
Posts: 556
Location: Bergen, Norway



PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, I heard about this new PSP/ GBA/ DS/ whatever killer they're working on. Allard, as far as I've heard, is the guy behind the Xbox, yeah? Wasn't the xbox going to be a PS2 killer, originally?

Of course, I'm not saying "Bwahahahah! It'll never happen!" I'm just not getting any big hopes. I liked the old days when all we had was a Gameboy and a chiropractor on standby (it ruined MY neck for life!). I welcomed the PSP to a degree, but I'm not sure another major competitor is really what we need in the handheld market.

The origami, though, is a machine that's worth looking into, and that should be relatively simple to port to, shouldn't it?
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Konedima
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Joined: 25 Oct 2003
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Consoles = No
Handhelds = HELL YES!!!
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Fost
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

konedima wrote:
Consoles = No

Any particular reason?

konedima wrote:
Handhelds = HELL YES!!!

Ds? PSP? Pocket PC?


It's interesting to know everyone's opinions...
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